A ‘stunned’ dog walker has spoken of the moment he found an hours old baby boy abandoned in a Birmingham park.
Semi-retired royal engineer Terry Walsh, 64, was left stunned when his female dog, Hel, miraculously uncovered the hours-old infant wrapped in a blanket at The Mound in Kings Norton at 5.30pm yesterday evening.
Meanwhile, police have released pictures of a £1 Matalan T-shirt worn by the baby boy when he was found, as police desperately search for the mother.
Without the help of his husky Mr Walsh would have walked by what he thought was a discarded blanket.
Fortunately, he heard the baby crying after Hel ran over, lay beside the rolled-up shawl and began ‘gently nudging’ the baby with his nose.
Semi-retired royal engineer Terry Walsh (pictured), 64, was left stunned when his female dog, Hel, miraculously uncovered the hours-old infant wrapped in a blanket at The Mound in Kings Norton at 5.30pm yesterday evening
He was wearing an orange striped T-shirt with a picture of a dinosaur on it and the words ‘Dino Dude’
The child was rushed to hospital and police are now trying to find the mother as they are ‘extremely concerned’ about her.
Pictures of Matalan clothes worn by the boy have been released by West Midlands Police in a bid to help trace the mother.
The baby was wearing an orange striped T-shirt with a picture of a dinosaur on it and the words ‘Dino Dude’.
Also, he wore grey bottoms and was wrapped in a white-and-grey blanket with a zig-zag pattern.
Speaking for the first time about the discovery, Mr Walsh said he saw ‘a rolled up blanket just under the bushes’.
He added: ‘I turned round to grab hold of Hel so she didn’t go over the glass, and she went off to the blanket, lying next to it and started nudging it with her nose very gently.
‘Suddenly I heard this baby cry. I think it was Hel’s gentle nudging and the heat from my Husky bitch’s body that woke the baby up.
‘A bigger dog or another dog with a different temperament might well have just ripped and tugged at the blanket and the baby could have been treated like a ragdoll and then you’ve also got the foxes and the rats and everything in there. How would they treat a baby?’
He continued: ‘I was a bit stunned so I quickly went over lifted part of the blanket away from the baby’s face and it was newborn, as I know now. I knew it was very young.’
Police said the baby was full term, likely to have been born the same day and abandoned hours later.
Detective Superintendent Annie Miller said: ‘The boy was full term and had most likely been born that day.
‘Luckily he hadn’t been there for very long because he was found by a dog walker who immediately raised the alarm. The boy is in hospital and doing really well.
‘Our primary concern is the well-being of the mother and we need to find her to check on her physical and mental health.
The child was found by a passing dog walker in a park known in Birmingham as The Mound, off Shannons Road in Kings Norton
‘Her baby is fine and in good hands, but the most important person in his life is his mother and it’s our priority to find her.
‘We need to know she’s safe and how she is medically, after giving birth.’
Ideally we’d like the mother herself to come forward, but are also appealing to the family.’
Mr Walsh, who lives in Kings Norton, said: ‘I couldn’t see anyone in the immediate vicinity, but about 30ft away I saw a lady with two young children so I rushed down towards her, not wishing to startle her, I said ‘Look I’ve just found what appeared to be an abandoned baby on top of the mounds there’.
The woman took her phone out immediately to call West Midlands Police before they headed over to settle the baby, he said.
‘We then went back to the baby, she picked the baby up. I kept hold of Hel – who just wanted to mother the child – and waited until the police came,’ he said.
‘They parked up on Shannon Road, I went down to meet them and guide them to the location where the baby was found.
‘The baby settled down pretty quickly. Clearly he was cold and the baby was getting the heat from the woman. If it hadn’t been for Hel, I wouldn’t have known. All I would’ve thought is that it’s a rolled up blanket.
‘I thank the Lord that the baby was alive, that could’ve been a lot worse. The baby could’ve been dead. I said to my neighbours, Heaven sent Hel to rescue newborn baby boy.’
Police are unable to reveal the ethnicity of the baby, but they wish to speak to a white woman in her early 20s who was seen by several witnesses around the area at the time.
Mr Walsh said: ‘I spoke to two teenagers who thought they saw a woman with the same or similar blanket carrying a baby about half an hour or an hour beforehand.
‘My concerns were first of all getting the police and ambulance there and then the mother.’
Anyone with information has been asked to get in touch, quoting log 3476 of 22 April.
Officers can be reached via live chat at west-midlands.police.uk, or via Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.